VANCOUVER — Big business does its case for tax reform no favours with a misleadingly structured and oddly spun report that purports to document the tax burden shouldered by 63 of Canada’s largest companies.

The report by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives does spell out some relevant numbers, but you will only find them if you persist long enough to get past the bumph — much of it in headline type — that implicitly tries to give these companies credit for taxes that are in fact paid by their employees.

As state psychiatric facilities shut their doors, people with severe mental illnesses are being locked in U.S. prisons and jails, finds report

There are ten times more people with severe mental illnesses in U.S. jails and prisons than in state psychiatric hospitals, and conditions of incarceration—including abuse and denial of care—are causing the health of this vulnerable population to decline even further.

Charles and David Koch may have spent millions of dollars opposing President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, but that didn’t stop them from benefiting from the law. The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Koch Industries received $1.4 million in subsidies from a $5 billion program established by the Affordable Care Act to help employers and states maintain coverage for individuals 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare.

—By Tim Murphy, Mother Jones, Wed Apr. 9, 2014
On Fox News, Dr. Steven Hotze is a hero. "He's the doctor fighting to let you keep your doctor," declared Neil Cavuto, who recently ran a segment on Hotze's lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act. Hotze is challenging the health care law on a technicality: All taxation bills must originate in the House, and part of the law was first introduced in the Senate. The case, which is currently before the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, stands a real chance of heading to the Supreme Court.

Conservatives, desperate for another opportunity to kill the law, have embraced Hotze. He has appeared alongside Texas lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to promote the lawsuit and been a mainstay in conservative media. But while many of Hotze's high-profile fans have portrayed him as an average doct…

Click here to view the original article.[Lobbyists appeared “12,378 times in quarterly lobbying reports in the period studied – each report representing from one to dozens of contacts with members of Congress and their staffs during the quarter it was filed.” *RON*]by Joshua Holland, Moyers & Company, April 3, 2014

An army of corporate lobbyists is trying to push a huge package of tax cuts through Congress without drawing public attention.

The 55 cuts, known on Capitol Hill as “extenders,” expired at the end of 2013 but in the past have been renewed retroactively on a bipartisan basis with little fanfare. Altogether, according to the Congressional Budget Office, they could cost the federal government $46 billion in revenues in 2014 and as much as $700 billion over the next 10 years. While some of the breaks would help working people, 90 percent of them would benefit the bottom lines of large, US-based multinationals.

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When was the last time a 700-page tome of economic history outranked the ”10 Day Detox Diet” on the Amazon top sales list? After receiving widespread attention in his native France, Thomas Piketty’s ”Capital in the Twenty-First Century” has received even greater attention on this side of the Atlantic, and deservedly so. It offers a stark and depressing picture for those who believe that some combination of democratic politics and economic growth can protect us from rampant inequality. If Piketty is right, then we are instead faced wit…

Click here to view the original article.[Excellent article on the neoliberal legacy following the disaster of 2008, and how "the placid certainties of neoliberal ideology rattle on as though nothing has happened." *RON*]
By Chris Lehmann, The Baffler No. 24, 2014

By any reasonable measure, the neoliberal dream lies in tatters. In 2008 poorly regulated financial markets yielded a world-historic financial collapse. One generation, weaned on reveries of home ownership as the coveted badge of economic independence and old-fashioned American striving, has been plunged into foreclosure, bankruptcy, and worse. And a successor generation of aspiring college students is now discovering that their equally toxic student-loan dossiers are condemning them to lifetimes of debt. Both before and after 2008, ours has been an economic order that, largely designed to reward paper speculation and penalize work, produces neither significant job growth nor wages that keep pace with productivity. …

Heartland Institute on the other hand, in its NIPCC “Climate Change Reconsidered II: the Biological Impacts” document, will say that climate change is good for the world, will have a net benefit for both plants and human health. This is the latest line run by right wing think tanks like He…

By Marty Klinkenberg, Edmonton Journal, April 9, 2014
EDMONTON - Alberta’s chief medical officer has confirmed statistics released two weeks ago show that a cancer cluster exists in Fort Chipewyan, but says government has no plans to identify possible causes.

That is alarming to a biochemist who reviewed a 2009 Alberta Cancer Board study that suggested an investigation be undertaken if any further incidences of a rare bile duct cancer called cholangiocarcinoma occurred.

“If anybody crunches the numbers for Fort Chipewyan, no matter how they are massaged, they wouldn’t show anything but a cancer cluster,” said John Dennis, an adjunct professor at the University of Calgary who government enlisted to conduct a peer-review of the previous st…

[Lorne Craig is the president of Unicycle Creative, a marketing company “dedicated to moving environmental and socially sustainable business forward”. He also publishes the green briefs blog. *RON*]Lorne Craig, Green Briefs, April 7th, 2014

An open letter to BC Premier Christy Clark – April 7, 2014

Dear Christy

May I call you Christy? It seems appropriate, given your warm, woman-of-the-people style of governing. I’m a soccer parent too, so that puts us on the same sidelines, wouldn’t you say?

Anyhow, it’s about this Bill 4 thing. You know, the amendment to the BC Parks act brought in by your government on March 24th, 2014. The one that now allows industrial activities within BC’s Provincial Parks.

I would understand if you missed it. After all, the legislation was rapidly passed without any meaningful consultation or dialogue. Maybe you were at a game with young Hamish at the time.